Blizzard Unveils New ‘Overwatch’ Hero, Orisa

After Blizzard spent the past week making mysterious references to the city of Numbani in-game and on social media, they revealed the 24th hero of Overwatch on March 2nd. World, meet Orisa.

Blizzard released multiple videos about their exciting new character, including one on her origins. After an attack on the Numbani airport by the notorious Doomfist left a public defense OR15 destroyed, genius child inventor Efi Oladele repurposed its parts into the new and improved Orisa, an omnic specifically designed to keep the people of Numbani and the rest of the world safe.

Image Credit: Blizzard Entertainment

Orisa is the the third character that Blizzard has added to Overwatch after the game’s official release, following Ana and Sombra. As her size and stature implies, Orisa is a Tank, making her the sixth member of the class. According to Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan in Orisa’s developer update, she is meant to function as an anchor for her team to rally around, a function previously filled solely by Reinhardt.

Orisa’s gameplay definitely reflects this. Her primary weapon is a projectile machine gun called a Fusion Driver, which boasts a reasonable range and a massive clip size, but has a lengthy reload time and makes Orisa walk slower as she fires it. Her alternative fire serves as a magnet to pull enemies in, repositioning them for easier removal or pulling them off of the map. Like Reinhardt, Orisa also sports a barrier to protect herself and her allies, but fires it from a projectile to a static position. Unlike Reinhardt, this allows her to keep firing at enemies while her shields are up.

Image Credit: Blizzard Entertainment

The most unique move of Orisa’s is her Fortify ability, which affects how Orisa reacts to enemy attacks. While Fortify is active, Orisa not only takes reduced amounts of damage, but she also becomes immune to any “crowd control” effects any attacks may have. This includes knockback from attacks like Pharah’s Concussive Blast and stun effects from attacks like Reinhardt’s Earthshatter, making Orisa a powerful stonewall that can prove very difficult to remove. Finally, Orisa’s ultimate is a Supercharger that powers up the attack of allies in its line of sight, allowing larger groupings to eliminate enemies with ease.

As exciting as Orisa is, she is only the first new hero to come out of an ongoing storyline that is expected to end with the release of another hero, the much-anticipated Doomfist. However, that doesn’t take away from the fact that Orisa is one of the most exciting and powerful updates to come out of Overwatch in quite some time.